ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the key role that the Desert Fathers played in defining holiness. It traces their approaches to asceticism, the desert as such, and especially the body. Lemeni argues that the desert is the central topos for the theme of deification in the Egyptian ascetic tradition. Lemeni argues that the Apophthegmata Patrum is an attempt to highlight a key aspect of early ascetic spirituality regarding the nature and purpose of holiness. In this context, he stresses that the Desert Fathers offered a powerful glimpse of a humanity renewed in and by Christ. The monks of the desert sought to become by grace what Christ was by nature: fully divine. Thus, desert monasticism became the archetype of the holiness. Second, Lemeni explores the ways in which such transformation was often described as being bathed in radiant light. In other words, the face of the monk was an outward manifestation of personal holiness, and the incontrovertible evidence of his elevated spiritual status. Holiness could thus be read on the monk’s face. Finally, Lemeni concludes that the desert represents a lived territory of holiness, and that the Desert Fathers were epiphanies of the holy flesh.
